RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Though I have not tried FPV, I would have though that orientation would be easier. For one you can see what is in front of your quad, unlike when your a couple of hundred meters away. I think it all comes down to being familiar with yoru flight area as well. With the OSD units you can get these days, purchasing an OSD with a GPS return to home is a must, that way if you do get lost flying around, just zoom up to height and flick RTH and the arrow will point you back to your take off point.
Posted on: 8/4/2012 4:47 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11181033

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Hi Randal. I have a quick question about auto land, because I know it works great on your quad. On mine it worked till till it touched the ground, then shot back up again. Is this due to the height the sonar is set at? Mine was very low to the ground, and I noticed if you have it right down almost at ground level it can go from a reading of almost zero in the software then one it is getting full signal feedback from the very close ground it can tend to read 2500 again. I would like to ask about what height is yoru sonar set off from the ground level on your quad?
Posted on: 6/29/2012 12:32 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11136793

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Well went for a fly this afternoon with pheonix74 this afternoon, and for some reason, my quad decided to drift off, and i had no steering control, so of course I dropped the throttle to prevent it getting to far out of the way near the road and crashed it. Smashed up the camera gimbal to pieces, and wrecked the servo as well, and damaged one prop. Rest of the quad seems ok, but one or two of my motors are bent as well. Was up and flying again in about 10 mins minus the camera gimbal. Mind you, I was out testing the auto landing. It worked well right till the bit where it touched the ground, and it bounced straight back up. Is there a trick to the position of the sonar for this? I have to see if my sonar is still working as well, as it was attached to the gimbal during the crash. Autoland test was done before the crash.
Posted on: 6/26/2012 9:43 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11133352

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
I have the same issue with GPS position hold. It just shoots off in another direction. Same with GH as well. It doesn't go home but goes off on holidays! I am about to reset my board, disconnect the GPS and uncheck it from the software and pack it away. I am not happy with it and I am starting to now wish I had just gotten one with the Baro and Mag sensors only. Would have saved me $50 on a sensor that clearly doesn't work at all. Its strange because you can check to see how many sat's the GPS gets and I get a good 7 to 14 sat's sometimes, so there is no reason the GPS signal is causing this. Has to be a code issue with the firmware. Something the Rabbit team will work on I hope. The wind has gotten up here real strong again, so I won't be doing any flying today. Lucky I have a few more days off.....
Posted on: 6/22/2012 5:58 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11128262

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Make sure that in the software that remote is ticked and loaded in the firmware. When your board goes through the start up notions simply move your aileron stick to one side. Doesn't matter which way. Your rabbit board should beep when it detects the stick movement to confirm the RX is properly connected and then go into breathing mode.
Posted on: 6/20/2012 4:08 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11124841

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
I'm not using a BEC at all, and just using my trusty 18 Amp Gaui ESCs and it seems ESC on motor 1 gets hot the most. It warms up I noticed even before you arm the board too. After a flight they all seem to even out in temperature.
Posted on: 6/19/2012 3:30 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11123439

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Has anyone made a note of which number ESC gets hot when you run your board powered from ESCs? I have noted No1 ( or M0 in my boards case) is the one that only seems to get hot and is powering the board.
Posted on: 6/18/2012 12:13 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11122593

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
LOL. Now I am not going into that argument about aledged stolen code. Personally I don't give a hoot if it is or isn't. As far as I am concerned, if you put such code in the public domain, in other words, so everyone can have it, then why complain when someone aledgedly uses it for another board? So stupid. Randall, you know my thoughts on this anyway. And yes no one has conclusive proof it is taken from Multiwii. I won't say stolen because how can something in the public domain, that is given out for free for anyone to use, be stolen. Thats just rubbish. Anyway, lets not get into that argument here, lets leave that to other people on other forums to get upset and carry on like total fools about. But given that there is code, and there is code for a multirotor board, then some of these simple features such as failsafe could easily be implimented. Hey, just steal the code form Multiwii! They won't mind.....
Posted on: 6/18/2012 2:04 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11122071

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
While I agree with you nebstress and Randall, the fact is, if the Rabbit is based on Multiwii code, then some of these features are already available to the multiwii, therefore could easily be implemented for the rabbit, as long as there is no extra hardware needed. Something like fail-safe is in multiwii and if anything is a great safety feature.
Posted on: 6/17/2012 1:01 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11121407

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
This is a great idea to have a fail safe. Maybe LF team could make this a setting. The beeping when there is no TX signal is a great idea too. Why didn't I think of this since i have one of those plane finder beepers you hook to your RX. Another feature they could add would be autolanding when your battery voltage, monitored by the lead to the balance cable, gets low. Though the rabbit seems to do this pretty good when the voltage drops down anyway.
Posted on: 6/16/2012 3:23 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11120460

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
I had a similar issue, and nebstress is correct. Just flick you aileron stick one way and it will beep and go into breathing mode.. this issue had me scratching my head for a while. Seems the board just needs to know that the RC TX is connected and won't work till you confirm it.
Posted on: 6/14/2012 8:30 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11118703

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
There is not a problem with the baro, it is just that they now have a better one out, and you can buy this daughter board seperate now, so people are keen to attch this board to their current boards.
Posted on: 6/8/2012 6:13 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11111768

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
quite simple Randall. The communication between the board and the software is via Serial data through the USB. So capturing this data when you make an adjustment is simple enough to do. From there you can reverse engineer this data to create your own GUI. Thats how its done. No real need for the exact code on the board, just knowledge on the communications between the board and the PC. Being it is similar to multiwii helps take out much of the guess work too.
Posted on: 6/7/2012 8:56 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11110809

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Yes I have seen this manual. All these manuals need urgent conversion int proper english, as chinglish is very hard to follow sometimes. as for the GPS feature yes I actually went and tested mine for the first time only a few hours ago actually. I just tried RTH and first time it worked well, second and third times not so well. It decided to go off on its own direction. You need the magometer working well for this as well I think. I need to recalibrate mine again I think. The GPS takes a couple of minutes to get a good satellite reading too. So when you connect your board to power, it will beep and sit in start up mode till it has a decent amount of satellites to lock onto before it will beep again and then go into breathing mode. From there you can arm it and fly.
Posted on: 6/7/2012 7:08 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11110701

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
He clearly states he tested the GUI test version, GUI meaning Graphic User Interface. He has tested it to see if it runs ok on his PC, as I have. No one has tested it to see if it worked with the actual Rabbit FC so far, as this release was only to let people see what the GUI is going to be like. And compared to the chinese Rabbit one, its a million times better. Really looking forward to this being released. Hopefully we will see a mod for BlueTooth serial connections as well, and a smartphone app that will allow you to tweak your settings from yoru phone. Much easier to do then drag your laptop out into the field let me tell you. If this board has the so called alleged stolen MultiWii code then a BlueTooth connetcions should be possible.
Posted on: 6/7/2012 5:51 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11110593

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Tony3di - This might be of interest. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1661104 I've tested this GUI test version and looks really good. I think thats an understatement saying this might be of interest! Wow. Great new software as well as a possibility of a blue tooth serial connection to the Rabbit and a future android phone app. I had this on my Crius board and I can tell you, having Blue Tooth and a smartphone app to tweak the settings on your flight controller board is great and certainly convinient. I hate dragging my laptop out into the field. I wished this for the rabbit and now it is soon to be a reality. And this new confog software looks awesome to say the least. One thing I don't like is the Rabbit config software. Its cramped, terrible to use and looked like it was programmed for windows 95. The Rabbit development team need to sack their software designer and get this new one as the default config.
Posted on: 6/6/2012 5:14 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11109307

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Im just wondering how this will go with GPS, seeing as you dont run GPS...
Posted on: 6/4/2012 4:21 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11105582

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Thanks Randall. I'll hopefully get out later in the week and test different firm wares in the field. I managed to tape all of my plugs together so that each group of plugs can be removed individually, which should stop the issue of removing all plugs to flash firmware easier, as my board is hidden in the middle of my frame and a pain to get to if you need to remove plugs. I have been reading on that evil website that it seems I am not the only one who has a strange issue with the Rabbit causing the motors to not accelerate correctly then suddenly come alive and flip to a crash. I would say the new firmware has an issue. What FW are you currently running?
Posted on: 6/3/2012 12:34 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11104895

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
From what I understand, FPV takes some getting use to. A bit like driving a car, it helps to be familiar with your surroundings Like anything, with some practice, start off small and work your way to flying in bigger and bigger areas, you will soon get the hang of FPV.
Posted on: 6/1/2012 10:47 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11103368

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Hi guys. I had powered it down a number of times yesterday, but the only way i got it to work was to reflash. Oh well. Anyway, I tried regluing the arm yesterday, and this morning i got up and it seems to have glued fine. Hopefully enough to fly until the new arm comes. I just have to add on a new motor and it will be away again. Going to reflash the new firmware again after disconnection everything and start from scratch.
Posted on: 5/31/2012 2:25 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11101591

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
That's OK, I found where I can get the firmware. I finally had some time today to go out and give my quad a test after last weeks very successful maiden flights. Today I went tou to try the baro' and sonar using height hold. Today ended in a bad day. Firstly, for some unknown reason, the board would not go into breathing mode after initializing at all. I have no idea why. Friend suggested I disconnect the GPS, which was plugged in but not activated. I did this but no luck. So I had my laptop with me and flashed the new firmware into the board with no issues. I unchecked the baro' and sonar again, and all worked fine. The quad flew great again!. So I enabled the sonar and baro again, and away she went. Height hold worked average under the new firmware if you ask me. Down low where the sonar could pick up the ground it worked a lot better, but moving the throttle to over ride it made the throttle seem sluggish. Turning height thold off returned it back to normal. It was like the height hold fought the throttle changes I made to with the TX to a degree. I decided to go more agressive to test this again, and this time I flew the quad faster away from me with height hold on, and it just decided to drop altitude and crash arm first into the ground. This made one of the motor omunts at the ends of the flamewheel frame snap and broke the wires going into the motor. I didn't even get to run one battery flat today. ;( I have had much bigger crashes on this frame and its held up, but it didn't take a direct full speed hit into the ground very well. Embarassing too when you have people watching. Could this have been because I flashed the new firmware with the sensors all plugged in? It is very strange how it just dropped like that when height hold was still enabled. I thought any throttle adjustments would have disabled height hold until you don't mobe the stick for 2 seconds? Looks like I can't do much till I get replacement parts now.
Posted on: 5/31/2012 2:36 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11100859

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Hi nebstress. No, no foam, I was just going ot give it a rough test. If it went up and down a few meters that would have been acceptable, but at altitude it went up and up and up till I took over and dropped the throttle. I probably wouldn't have flashed the new firmware that way, but I was out in the field, and I couldn't seem to get the board to arm for some reason. I flashed the new firmware and reset the settings back to where I had them form stock. I didn't calibrate the horizontal, as it seemed to work fine anyway. The ACC worked fine and autp levelled just fine. If the settings can change if you flash with everythign attached then this could well have been what caused the crash. Re the breathing mode, I tried to force it into breathing mode but this didn't work. This was on the previous firmware by the way. I had done nothing to the board but enabled the baro and sonar before heading out. All wiring and connections were exactly the same as to when I flew it on Sunday. Had me stumped as to why it didn;t want to work, so in frustration I flashed it in the back of the car with the laptop, which had the new firmware on it. Anyway I have a new arm on the way. I may disconnect everything and reflash it again. I have about 5 days to wait for the new arm to arrive, so i'll get it done before then.
Posted on: 5/31/2012 2:33 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11100884

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Am I missing something? Is there an official site for downloading the firmware? Or do you haveto go chasing for it on other forums, like the Nasty one as Randall calls it?
Posted on: 5/29/2012 12:31 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11098821

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Well I got it all together. I read may many PDF files and watched many of Randalls videos. Got it hooked up and got the ESC calibrated. I calibrated the horizonotal ( ACC ) and with the default settings took it for its first flight. what can I say. ...WOW. Even with the default settings it flew pretty good. The ACC was a touch sloppy but being the default setting is low I am not surprised. The thrust was very good and the TX responce was great as well, considering I had no Expo set up on my TX at all. Just out of interest, is anyone using Expo on their TX at all? I must say I found the manual confusing a bit, and especially their terminology ( I'm use to Multiwii terms which are pretty standard ). For example I had to search a number of times to work out where the hell is the instructions for arming the board. Lucky Randalls video was a big help. Thanks again bud! This is my third flight controller and so far the best ( and thats an assessment after just one flight! ). I'm going to start reading up on tweaking this bird and see hwo well it goes then. edit:- Well I set the settings to about the same as what is shown in one of Randalls videos, and she is smooth as ever. I have to play around with the sensors now, but thta will come later in the week. I might try the ESC timing high as well, seems to have helped Randalls quad a lot. Does anyone have decent info on the GPS setup for this board? I have some instructions but they are very basic. I would like to hear others experiences with the GPS features.
Posted on: 5/29/2012 3:45 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11095848

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Well just an update from here in Sunny Sydney. Rabbit board appears to work fine now I spent half the morning trying to get the software to run. While I love this board, the software is rather amateurish to say the least. Had a tonne of troubles getting the OCX to register, and despite much searching on google for the error I kept getting, I could not find a straight solution till I read between the lines and figured a way to register it manually that worked. All good now. Shame the font of the software is very small as well. Hopefully some one will write a better version down the track, or better still, someone will come up with a way to add Bluetooth to this board and we can use a phone app to tweak the board like you can with MultiWii. Still reading through tonnes of info I have received from Furnibird as well now I have all of Randalls videos on the hard drive here for reference. Big thanks again Randall for your videos, they are a big help while trying to get my head around this board. I have it going now on the PC so its time to mount it to the frame, and connect the basics up to it and see how it flys.
Posted on: 5/29/2012 3:43 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11095737

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Hi Nebstress. I can see why people use GLB for the Paypal, as its a much easier way to pay, but Aliexpress was still cheaper and faster with free postage. The better choice if you ask me. I must explore that site and see what else they sell multirotor related. Thanks for the offer of help. I do have one quick and simple question to start. How did you mount your board to the bottom plate? Did you use the supplied stand offs or did you mount it some other way, such as foam vibration absorbing pads or just some velcro? I am a bit worried about vibrations effecting the board. I know there are ways to counter act vibrations, but I am keen to just get the board mounted, set it up and go and test fly before i start tweaking and and adding the sonar and GPS sensors.
Posted on: 5/29/2012 3:41 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11094548

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Well I finally received my Rabbit today, and I must say it is worth buying from Aliexpress if you want your board cheaper and quicker. It came in 4 working days to Australia from China, with free DHL, which is about a week and a half quicker then any item I have ever gotten from China. Very pleased. The Rabbit board, sonar and GPS plus all cables were very well packed as well, which is more then I can say for some of the things I have bought from other China distributers. I have already fitted the board into my F450 Flamewheel frame and its a good fit, though it will need to go on the small spacers supplied. Really looking forward now to getting this put together, hopefully on the next week or so, depending on work and weather, which is not real good at the moment here in Sydney. Lots of wind about the next few days. I will I am sure run into some questions, and hopefully you guys here will be a bit more helpfull then those on some other forums out there, which many of us are not impressed with. Cheers!
Posted on: 5/29/2012 3:40 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11094108

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Thanks nebstress, that makes sense. Would be great if someone could change these manuals into plain english. I would if I had the time and the correct software..
Posted on: 5/28/2012 5:36 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11097090

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Thats great to hear! With flashign firmware I am sure I read that you should disconnect all connections to the board as it can cause errors. I this true? I just need to kow as I only just got it all put together.
Posted on: 5/28/2012 12:25 PM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11097531

RE: Rabbit Multirotor Control Board.
Hi Nebstress. I wonder if you could answer something for me, anyone in fact may be able to answer this. I am just sitting here studying the two documents that the links were posted above. Nebstress's calibration document and the Rabbit GPS manual. Big thanks to nebstress on his calibration manual, its straight forward and precise and easy to follow. I wish I could say the same for the GPS manual. The chinglish translation is poor and had me confused in some parts. Can someone explain to me what the 'loose rod' is? here is a paragraph called Loose rod and point lock. I am guessing point lock is a bad translation of position hold, but the loose rod bit has me stumped. This is what the manual says in this section.- "Loose rod and point lock, Rabbit GPS works normally and open the loose rod and point lock function, any time when you stop operating the remote control aileron and elevator,the flight controller will be hovering automaticly in the current position, the horizontal position and the height position can be adjusted respectively. If you open the press & return function at the same time which has the priority." I am assuming the majority if this paragraph says that when you are hovering and you let go of the elevator/aileron stick that it goes into a position hover that is controlled by the GPS. The translation here is terrible, have i got the basic idea of it, or am I missing something?
Posted on: 5/28/2012 4:20 AM by Author "Soupbones" in the forum "Multi Rotor Helicopters"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11097070